Mamata Banerjee-led TMC today announced a total of 42 candidates from West Bengal for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The list included some high-profile names like former cricketer Yousuf Pathan from the Baharampur seat, Shatrughan Sinha from Asansol, and Kirti Azad from Durgapur, among others.

The party has renominated 16 sitting MPs and fielded 12 women candidates.

The party has also re-nominated expelled Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra from Krishnanagar seat for the second consecutive term.

Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, announced the list of TMC candidates in Kolkata today.

The announcement of candidates also put rest all lingering hopes of a seat-sharing pact with the Congress in the state. However, despite not allying with Congress, the TMC continues to be an ally of the grand old party in the INDIA bloc.

Earlier on Sunday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the TMC will announce the candidates for all 42 seats in West Bengal for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

“Today, I will bring before you candidates for all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal,” the West Bengal chief minister said at the rally at the Brigade Parade Grounds of Kolkata.

Congress Reaction 

Reacting to the TMC announcing its candidates on all 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said, “The Indian National Congress has always maintained that it wants a respectable seat-sharing formula with the TMC in West Bengal. It means mutual negotiations, give and take, some compromise. We have always said that our doors are open for negotiations and seat-sharing talks but there should be no unilateral announcement of the seats, we should do it collectively together as we have done in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Delhi, UP, and so on…The TMC has announced, I don’t know what pressure was there on the TMC but as far as we are concerned we want to strengthen the INDIA alliance in West Bengal…So let’s see what happens.”